For the production of non-amino-organic acids including succinic acid by fermentation, anaerobic bacteria including those belonging to the genera Anaerobiospirillum or Actinobacillus are usually used (U.S. Pat. No. 5,142,834 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,504,004, and International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology (1999), 49, 207-216). Although the yield of products is high by using such anaerobic bacteria, many nutrients are required for their proliferation, and therefore, it is necessary to add a large amount of organic nitrogen sources such as corn steep liquor (CSL) into a culture medium. The addition of large amount of organic nitrogen sources not only leads to an increase in the culture cost but also an increase in purification cost for separating the product, thereby it is not economical.
In addition, a method in which aerobic bacteria such as coryneform bacteria are cultured under aerobic condition to proliferate bacterial cells and then harvested and washed to allow them as resting bacteria to produce non-amino organic acid without oxygen aeration, has been known in the art (JP11-113588A and JP11-196888A). This method is economical because bacteria can grow sufficiently in a simple culture medium containing less amount of organic nitrogen for proliferating bacterial cells. However, there is still a desire for improvement in terms of the production amount of a desired organic acid, the concentration thereof, and the production rate thereof per bacterial cells as well as simplification of the production process, and so on. Furthermore, the production of non-amino organic acid with fermentation using bacteria having an enhanced phosphoenol pyruvate carboxylase activity has been reported (e.g., JP11-196887A). However, there has been no report about the production of non-amino organic acids using bacteria having an enhanced fumarate reductase activity.